Interesting piece by @meganmaurice.bsky.social - ngl, I hadn’t clocked that the system was different in the men’s comp!

i have said this before but if you are actually interested in influencing people beyond a narrow circle of too-online journalists you will be making direct to camera videos on tiktok, instagram and youtube. if you primarily post on text-based social media then you're just dicking around.

There's a queue of people down two flights of stairs to the front door of the building for the Parramatta blood donation centre. They are booking people in for later appointments one by one, so still worth doing.

Elon's little serfs are quite literally begging journalists to come back because every publicly available source of data shows people have fled the platform and young people won't use it. They are literally begging regular people to come back. Don't do it! It is a website by and for actual Nazis!

If you have a blood donor enrolment number, should that tell you your blood type? I don't know mine.

Today's blog post is my last one for the year and it examines the question of whether the 2PP (Labor vs Liberal) is meaningful in seats where it is a Liberal vs Independent contests (mostly the teal seats) #auspol

Finding your tribe: Why Australia’s social media ban gets It wrong: https://benhr.xyz/2025/12/11/finding-your-tribe-why-australias.html

Keep thinking of what social media would have meant to me as a teen growing up in isolation in the country. Sure, I read more books, but also fled home at 17 to live with my boyfriend... ended up married in my teens. Would have loved to be a part of an online group of friends for support.

Today I'm looking at some of the facts used to inform the debate around fixed terms. You might hear that the average parliament lasts for 2 years 8 months - that's true over the last 125 years, but doesn't reflect the last 35 years, when parliaments usually run at about their full term. #auspol

Ben's doing some fascinating work on parliament expansion and this one makes a key point. The 1948 expansion was a big moment for the urbanisation of Australian politics, but that's done. Now it's a way to get more compact country seats without malapportionment.

Today's blog post dives into history and looks at how the Coalition has responded to past Labor moves to expand the size of the parliament, why the attitude of the National Party changed between 1948 and 1983, and what that has to do with redistribution rules. #auspol

Absolutely stunning to see Australia's teen social media ban rushed through while every single government, educational institution and probably a huge number of parents are frantically force-injecting chatbot slop into the mind of every single child in the country without a second's hesitation

I was just thinking — if these sorts of age gates become routine, they will be an EXCEPTIONAL phishing strategy. We'll see websites compromised with official-looking data harvesters added in the same way that cryptominers were for ages.

What the social media ban assumes about our society is that the places where adults congregate to share ideas are never safe for children. And it’s wrong

Today's blog post is one I've been working on for a while - I have drawn a map of what the electoral map could look like if the Parliament expanded to 16 senators per state and 200 seats in the House. #auspol

Chatted with @benraue.com about one of those niche #auspol topics I know too much about - the history of & evolution of Labor factions www.tallyroom.com.au/63678 #auspol

I just published a new working paper with Melbourne Law School's Electoral Regulation Research Network building on the work I've been doing on the appropriateness of Australian legislatures' sizes. Give it a read maybe??

For today's blog post, I looked at the recent DemosAU MRP. We really don't know a lot about how preferences would flow in races where One Nation are in the top two - but if they are polling in the high teens and the Coalition vote collapses, they could win a bunch of seats #auspol

Great stuff from Judy Brett.

The Victorian Electoral Matters Committee has recommended that group voting tickets be abolished as soon as possible, with an independent process after 2026 to come to a proposal on a referendum to change the upper house electoral structure. My take is here: #springst

A note re #Hinchinbrook - it is almost certainly NOT the case that One Nation's decision to recommend preferences to the LNP caused the LNP to win the seat. The follow rate for One Nation how to vote cards is nowhere near high enough for it to be so.

There's a great interactive in the Guardian today looking at Group Voting Tickets in Victoria and possible alternative models to replace the current system, featuring analysis from myself #vicpol www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...

Today's podcast is with Sarah Cameron about the 2025 Australian Election Study. We discuss generational and gender splits, Peter Dutton's (lack of) popularity, changing attitudes to the USA and voter dealignment. www.tallyroom.com.au/63669 #auspol

I'm following the Hinchinbrook count here: www.tallyroom.com.au/63655 First eight booths strong for LNP (and ON) and weak for KAP.

Today's podcast is with former Liberal ministerial staffer (and my colleague) Michael Evangelidis about how the Liberal factions work. www.tallyroom.com.au/63641 #auspol

Charles Bannerman scored 165 in the first innings of the first test in 1877, 67.35% of the team's total. That record has never been broken. Right now Head is on 99/145, or 68.28%.

We covered a lot in this one. Population movements, country v city, marginal seat campaigns, and the extremely cooked old Senate system.

The podcast is back for a short run, and today's podcast is about the history of previous parliamentary expansions, in 1948 and 1983, with historians Frank Bongiorno and @cmonnox.bsky.social www.tallyroom.com.au/63628 #auspol

Just preaching my message of "wanting to do less more often" we all have our reasons.

Today's blog post is inspired by the discussion this week of the 1975 Dismissal. It looks at how Senate majorities have changed since federation, and the role of electoral systems in shaping them. I also put a case that it's multi-party politics that protects us from a repeat of 1975 #auspol

Mackerras: switzer.com.au/the-experts/...

Why any politician still has an account on X astounds me.

Today's blog post looks at the first time the federal parliament was expanded in 1948 - how the pendulum looked before and after the change, and where the marginal seats were located #auspol www.tallyroom.com.au/63613

my take on this growing "roblox should be in the teen social media ban" discourse is that this is what happens when a government tells the electorate/the world that the way to deal with online harms is to ban something for kids, and let everyone else suffer.

I'll obviously write a more fulsome submission with my colleagues at @abundanthousing.org.au but I'm gonna also write a personal submission responding to (e) with my Most Annoying Opinion Yet: The Electoral Systems Theory of Political NIMBYism: how single member districts make NIMBYs kingmakers

If you are posting on or engaging with content on X, you are working as a volunteer laborer helping this specific man earn money and political influence. Any person, group or organisation that is still there and helping keep you there: you have to make them get out, not give them reason to stay

The by-election for the Queensland state seat of Hinchinbrook will be held on November 29. Former Katter MP Nick Dametto held it on a 13.2 per cent margin but resigned to run for mayor of Townsville. Premier David Crisafulli announced the election date today in a campaign video. #qldvotes

It's probably over two years until the next federal election, but I've decided to launch the first part of my federal election guide. It features profiles of 102 House seats in NSW, VIC, WA and NT, and all eight Senate guides. #auspol www.tallyroom.com.au/63541

I've been getting back into the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series after many years, and the most relatable part is how everyday objects like doors and elevators have been imbued with artificial intelligence and it just makes them obnoxious and frustrating to use and everyone hates it.

Yep I was told this by the AEC media team.

Today's blog post is again about the 1984 election - how many MPs jumped ship to safer seats? And how different was the swing in seats with sitting Labor MPs or without any sitting MP? #auspol www.tallyroom.com.au/63522

Today's blog post looks back at the 1984 parliamentary expansion - how did it change the shape of the pendulum, and how did it change where marginal seats were located? www.tallyroom.com.au/63515 #auspol

Anyone done this bit yet

Today's blog post looks back at the 1984 parliamentary expansion - how did it change the shape of the pendulum, and how did it change where marginal seats were located? www.tallyroom.com.au/63515 #auspol

Learned that an anonymous outside expert on submersibles did an interview with the OceanGate Titan investigation, and they released a transcript, with all the names redacted. The first line of his first answer? "I'm sure you're familiar with my film Titanic."

Just in time for reference if you're still mulling over registering a political party to contest the election.

I've published my full guide to the 2027 NSW state election. Yes, it's a while away, but if you're trying to wrap your head around how it might go, you'll find it useful. www.tallyroom.com.au/62772 #nswpol

New Zealand has undergone a redistribution of their electorate boundaries, and I thought I would summarise the changes and estimate the vote margins for the new seats. #nzpol www.tallyroom.com.au/62140